I should like to make an important announcement. We have moved into the 21st century. We are no longer enslaved to free-to-air programming. No longer at the mercies of video chain stores who keep going out of business. We bought a new telly.

The new telly, besides being veritably enormous, does all sorts of clever things that everyone else has known about for ages. We can watch programs we like to watch. We can watch them when we like to watch them. We too can now overload our modem and for the first time in our lives, may actually outstrip our download limit.

The mechanisms by which we are so enabled are complicated. The circuitry within these new devices is sophisticated. They can be perplexing to install and infuriating to learn to operate. Getting the telly to work, we discovered, was not the obstacle.

Following our purchase we were instructed to go to the loading dock. After waiting in the empty dock for a suitably long time and making a couple of phone calls, a person with a trolley and a large box appeared. We opened the door of our large boot and attempted to put the device in.

It did not fit.

There was some talk of angling it in so that one end would rest on the head of a junior recipe tester sitting in a car seat, but that conversation didn't progress very far. We put the telly back on the trolley, thanked the helper, and said we'd be back.

On the way home the senior recipe tester had an epiphany. "The van," he exclaimed. "Think of the time and irritation saved if we don't have to get all the car seats out of the car. I'll put it in the fridge." The van, you understand, is kitted out with 850L of cold space. Ample for any modern purchase.

The junior recipe testers and I waited expectantly at the front window while the senior recipe tester drove the van back to collect the prize. When he returned I rushed out to offer assistance carrying the telly into the house for the all important, but expectedly tricky, setup. My call went unheeded.

It did not fit.

The, now resigned, senior recipe tester spent the next fifteen minutes extracting the myriad car seats that grace the back seat of the car. The seats were then folded down creating the indubitable cavern of space required. He returned to the shop to face the terse person with the trolley who had run out of patience some trips ago.

Turns out that these complicated pieces of gadgetry are extraordinarily straight forward to set up. If only you can get them home.

If you're having trouble making it all fit may I suggest next week's menu?

Don't forget that Sunday evening (15th November) we will be at our very first market. Tickets to the event are available here. Come and have a glass of bubbles, taste some of our most popular dinners, and try our Christmas pudding (puddings available for sale on the night). We'd love to meet you!